Robotic devices can provide services for humans. Examples of a useful robotic device can be a simple autonomous robot to provide services to an elderly person or to patrol a workplace at night. Robotic devices can also have applications that control the operations that are performed by the robotic device. For example, one application may include functions for accomplishing navigation tasks by localizing or estimating the current location of the robotic device and for navigating reliably to reach locations in the environment. Other example applications can include telecommunications, photo capture, video playback, audio playback, navigation, and video conferencing abilities.
An example of a video conference application can use a robotic device where a video screen on a robotic device displays a video image of a remote user to communicate with a local user at the location where the robotic device is located. The video screen can be viewed by the local user at the robotic device's location and the remote user can view the local user using a camera mounted in the robotic device. This allows a two-way video conversation to take place using audio and video. If desired, the robotic device may follow the local user around in a building during the video conversation. However, the interaction between the local user and the remote user is generally limited to the screen of the robotic device and what the camera captures of the local user.